FEDS TARGET FISH BLADDER SMUGGLING

7 charged with trying to cross border with endangered Sea of Cortez species

San Diego 
Federal prosecutors in San Diego said Wednesday they have charged seven people over the past two months with engaging in an unusual but highly lucrative smuggling trade involving the bladders of an endangered fish that lives in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.

The bladders of the totoaba (toe-TWAH-bah) fish can each fetch as much as $10,000 or more on the black market abroad, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said at a news conference at the federal building in downtown San Diego.

They are highly sought for use in a Chinese soup, and are prized for their supposed benefits for boosting fertility, skin vitality and circulation.

The seven charged since February are accused of trying to cross from Mexico into the United States with 529 of the valuable bladders. One man charged last week, 73-year-old Song Shen Zhen, was found with 27 of them in his vehicle at the Calexico Port of Entry.

Investigators with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later found Zhen had what Duffy described as a stash house for fish bladders in Calexico. Investigators found another 214 bladders at the home, spread around the floors of the otherwise empty house. Large fans were working to dry them.

Investigators pegged the total value of the haul from Zhen at $3.6 million, with the black market value estimate at $5,000 for each bladder and $10,000-plus in foreign Asian markets.

This is the time of year the species spawns in the Sea of Cortez and is most vulnerable to poaching. The fish is protected in Mexico and, since 1979, in the U.S.

Duffy called the spike in cases a “unique and troubling” trend.

And, she added, “Without question, I think the smuggling of totoaba fish bladders has got to be one of the strangest categories of items we have seen smuggled across the border in recent years.”

In the past, officials have seized items as diverse as iguana meat and shark fins from Mexico. All of the items have one thing in common: great value on the black market because they are rare or tightly regulated species that are hard to come by.

The totoaba, a member of the croaker family of fish, can grow to more than six feet in length and weigh more than 200 pounds. Its large and valuable bladder is an internal gas-filled organ that helps the fish control its buoyancy.

The fish is endemic to the Sea of Cortez, which is east of the Baja Peninsula and west of the Mexican mainland, and is also known as the Gulf of California. The totoaba was once abundant there, but intensive fishing from the 1940s on nearly decimated the species, which was put under protection in Mexico in 1975.

Jill Birchell, special agent in charge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for California and Nevada, said the wave of arrests for bladder smuggling is unprecedented.

“Whenever you’ve got a black market commodity that is as high in value as these totoaba fish bladders are, trade is going to follow that commodity,” Birchell said. “We’ve had occasional seizures over the years, but this is the first year we’ve had this high of a number of seizures all at once.”

Other cases charged include a Monterey Park man caught with 11 bladders on Feb. 27, and a man from Imperial caught with 170 bladders hidden in three coolers.